


Muggle Relations

by phoenixgal



Series: Scenes from a Life [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aurors, Bisexual Male Character, Detectives, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Magical Law Enforcement, Ministry of Magic, Multi, Mystery, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, metamours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-29
Updated: 2017-09-29
Packaged: 2019-01-06 18:20:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12216330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixgal/pseuds/phoenixgal
Summary: Harry and Ron search for a mysterious criminal whose magic seems to be out of control. Harry meets a muggle detective. Ron is uncomfortable with muggles, and, more to the point, Harry's poly marriage and sexuality.





	Muggle Relations

**Author's Note:**

> This bit definitely got out of hand, especially since this series has all of like three readers and, while people had nice things to say about Jules, really, I know people don't want to read OC's. Ah well. Here it is anyway.

They were on Muggle related crimes for a six month stretch. It made Ron antsy, but Harry had to admit that he loved it whenever he got the chance. He was thinking of asking if he might stay on this rotation for a second go around, even if it meant changing partners.

Part of what he liked was learning more about the Muggle law enforcement methods. They weren't as sure as some of the wizarding ones, but it was a bit like a puzzle. Some aurors walked into a crime scene and performed their standard half a dozen spells to detect traces of whose magic was at work, determine exact time of the crime, find out the exact spells used in the vicinity, and then they walked out and started prying into people's brains to see what secrets witnesses might be hiding. Muggles couldn't just wave a wand. They had to use more subtle evidence most of the time. And sometimes that was good. It made them look harder.

“You sure I blend in?” Ron asked.

“You look fine, Ron.” 

Harry wondered sometimes if there was some wizarding gene that made everyone think clashing colors were fashionable. He had made Ron remove a bright orange polka dotted necktie before they went out on their early morning call. He'd chucked it in the rubbish bin as they walked to the crime scene where they were meeting a new liaison.

The Department of Magical Law Enforcement had several dozen Muggle law enforcement liaisons on the payroll for occasional employment. There were three people in London, and Tim Houghton was the newest, so new that this was the Detective Inspector's first referral to the DMLE. It was also their first time meeting him.

When they approached the crime scene, there was plastic tape everywhere blocking off the area. Harry pulled out the badge he had, which was charmed to make the viewer believe it was whatever they expected. Within moments, they were through the perimeter and able to see the extent of the destruction.

“Blimey,” Ron said, looking around. “How are they possibly explaining this one?”

“Bomb, I suppose,” Harry said. “Or gas explosion. That's what they called the destruction after Sirius and Peter Pettigrew fought.”

“I thought gas was just air,” Ron muttered, looking around.

“It's also a sort of thing that goes in pipes,” Harry tried to explain, though he realized he himself didn't really know what the difference was or why it might suddenly explode. Sometimes he found himself up against things in the Muggle world that he guessed he would understand if he'd continued his education there. He'd know why “gas explosion” was something that happened and whether it was plausible that this could be one.

The destruction was really shocking. Half of the small house was destroyed as well as part of the street and the wall of another home next door.

“Ambulators,” Ron said. “We should go see...”

“Ambulances,” Harry corrected automatically, but he followed Ron over to the two flashing vehicles.

There were two bodies, both covered with sheets on gurneys. The meaning behind that was clear enough.

“Blimey,” Ron said again. “Death Eaters?”

“There's no one big left on the lists,” Harry said, wracking his brain. They had a most wanted list. As recently as two years ago, there had been several prominent Death Eaters still at large, but they'd all been accounted for in the last few years. They were dead or in Azkaban or closely monitored.

“Harry Potter?” a voice asked.

Harry turned. A young man with short, dark hair and dark eyes had approached the two of them from behind. He was attractive and for a brief flash of a moment, Harry let himself appreciate the muggle inspector. “DI Houghton?” he asked.

“Yes,” the man nodded, giving Harry a warm smile that, had Harry been in another context, he might have thought was an invitation, but it was over in a flash of the moment as the man turned to Ron. “And you must be Ron Weasley?” Ron nodded. “Excellent. Can we talk over here?” He gestured to the garden furniture that sat in front of the damaged house.

“Nice to meet you DI Houghton,” Harry said.

“Call me Tim,” he said. “May I call you Harry? Ron?” He nodded a thank you. “I've sent my partner, Sarah, out for coffees, so hopefully we have a bit of time to chat. First things, I suppose. What do I say you're from?”

“MI-5,” Ron said, fumbling in his pockets and pulling out a card. That was another of their contacts.

“And do the real MI-5…?” Tim began.

“Something this big, I'm guessing they'll be showing up if we don't act quickly,” Harry said. “So we need to know if we need to call in the obliviators and start gathering our evidence or if we leave the crime to you.”

“Right,” Tim said, nodding. “I'm rather new to all this. My half-sister is at Hogwarts now and two months ago, a man appeared in my office, escorted by my boss, saying I had special skills… I never thought my youngest sister would be getting me a job. I barely even know her. My father started a whole new family… Well, that's a bit of an aside. Anyway, I didn't even think of it, but then when I went into the house… Maybe I'd better show you myself.”

Tim led them into the house, which was a mess. On the ground were already chalked outlines of the bodies. And next to one of them was unmistakably a smashed wand.

“Dragon core,” Ron said, carefully touching the wand.

“This isn't registered as a wizarding home,” Harry said, pulling out his wand.

The next hour quickly became a flurry of activity. The obliviators arrived and Harry went over the scene while Ron oversaw the oblivation squad. There wasn't a ton to go on. He could see evidence of magic, but his spells weren't turning up what exactly, which meant it was run of the mill magic, or something radically unknown. He even resorted to potions, which he hated. There was always lot of clean up when using magic detection potions, and this time, when it turned out to be a waste of time, he was beyond frustrated and ended up almost taking it out on Ron, who had his own frustrations overseeing the outside clean up and oblivation. It made for a long day that wasn't especially fun.

“He's useless,” Ron said, sagging in the room and looking at the chalk outlines.

“Who?”

“That Houghton bloke. He's nearly gotten oblivated twice, and he can't seem to get me those bodies out of the morgue.”

Harry sighed. “I'll talk to him. It's his first go around with us, after all. There's a learning curve, I guess.” He thought fleetingly of how long it had taken him to feel like he really understood the wizarding world. And this bloke wasn't even a wizard. “Will you give this a try? And then do the wall repairs? This whole case is maddening.”

They switched roles. Harry didn't find DI Houghton, who asked again that Harry call him Tim, to be useless at all, just green. It was all right though. For one thing, he was fit and friendly, with warm brown eyes and an easy smile for someone in a position like his. More to the point, Harry had been on muggle related crimes several times and he obviously spoke muggle a bit better than Ron. In short order, they had dispatched his very confounded partner to the morgue with Ron to get the bodies and have them transferred to the morgue at St. Mungo's for investigation.

Of course, by the time everything was finished, it was getting late. The sun was already down. Harry shook Tim's hand. “I'll be in touch, maybe tomorrow or the next day. Right now, I've got to get home.”

“Family man?” Tim asked. He seemed eager to get to know Harry, though Harry thought he detected a note of something like disappointment in Tim's voice.

Harry smiled. “Three kids. The youngest is just starting to walk.”

“No way. You're too young for it, surely.”

With a grin, Harry reached into his pockets and pulled out the photo he had of the three of them, James holding baby Lily, making faces at her to get her to pose for the camera, and Albus making one of his grumpiest little faces. He held the photo up for Tim.

“Oh, it's a digital photo?” he said. Then, as Harry had anticipated, he squinted and looked at the thin paper of the picture. “God, what am I saying? It's magic.” His face went through several funny looks and settled on awe.

Harry laughed. It had been a long day, but Tim had been a good sport and Harry liked him. He was going to be a decent liaison, Harry thought. He needed to remember to put it in the report to recommend he be kept on and not oblivated.

“I couldn't resist showing off a bit,” Harry admitted. “Not often I get to impress the muggles. I'll find you if I need you in the next few days.”

“Well, I'm not a family man, so ring me any time,” Tim said. “It's a tragic way to meet, but if it weren't for the murders, this would have been fun.”

“Ah, then you'll enjoy this,” Harry said. With that, he apparated away, wishing he could have seen the detective inspector's face.

* * *

Two nights later, Harry was sitting in the living room, blocks and little muggle car toys strewn at his feet, with the case notes spread in front of him, feeling utterly stumped. The dead wizards still hadn't been identified. The wands were both unregistered, though they were pretty sure one was German, or possibly Polish, though the other was an old Olivander that predated Harry's time. The records from those wands were all missing. Harry couldn't remember a case with this few leads.

“Still stuck?” Ginny asked, coming back in from putting Lily to bed.

Harry looked up at her and quickly shuffled the notes back in the folder. “Sorry. Yes. I was going to tidy the toys. Um…” He withdrew his wand and thought about the best way to efficiently sort them.

“You don't have to,” she said. “I can make the boys do it in the morning. It's their mess.”

“Yes, well.”

They looked at each other across the room. Harry tried to figure out what he was supposed to say. He wondered if Ginny was doing the same thing. Her hair was cropped short, like when she had been playing for the Harpies, though her bangs were looser. A sleek lock of her red hair hung over her eyes. Harry wanted to go brush it aside and tell her she looked beautiful. Instead, they both stayed still, quiet.

Finally, Ginny came to sit next to him. “It'll get easier,” she said after a bit. “It's only been a few weeks.”

It had been longer, but Harry didn't say anything. She was right. Things were mostly back to normal since they had fought not long after Lily was born. Things were good. They had carefully spelled out some rules. It was just going to take time.

“Are you… are you seeing Jules tonight?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Yeah. All right.”

“You could… I mean, when you came back, we talked about you being sure to take time to go out and pull or just… If you ever…”

Harry shrugged. In the months he had stayed away, he had done plenty of that. Random men in muggle bars. The sex was mostly good, and the initial burst of freedom and revenge on Ginny had sated his anger with her over things she had done, but it had faded quickly, replaced by a sort of emptiness. He wasn't sure what he wanted. When he was being honest with himself, he could admit that he was jealous of what Ginny had with Jules. But he didn't think he could forge that with anyone. The logistics seemed impossible. He remembered saying something of that sort to Neville before his wedding. He'd since gotten used to the idea of one offs. They filled a need and left him free to come home to his wife. And that was what he wanted more than anything, to be able to come home to Ginny.

Ginny seemed to sense that he didn't want to work it out. “Tell me about the case,” she said.

They could still read each other then.

“Two men killed in a muggle home. There was a massive mess. Looked like a pretty big explosion. However, I have no idea what caused it. No potion residue, so it wasn't anything gone wrong on that front. None of the magic reveal spells have shown much. The only reason we knew they were wizards was the broken wands at the scene. But we can't identify the men. They must have been foreigners, but we don't know from where. It's a real mess.”

They talked for a little while and Harry relaxed into the sofa, letting his feet brush his wife's legs. She casually pulled them into her lap and ran fingers along his calves, talking about her new job at the Prophet, reporting on quidditch. “And I'd like to get a little kids' team together for James. They could play on those children's brooms,” she said. “And use the little keeper practice corner at the Canons' field. I think we could get a dozen other children and let them skirmish. The teams don't use them weekday afternoons usually.”

“That's a great idea,” Harry said. She seemed happier now that she was back at work, even if he had balked a little at her leaving Lily at the daycare so young.

Harry stood up and immediately stepped on a toy car. It must have been charmed because a tiny horn sounded and the miniature vehicle backed up. “Ugh,” he said. Despite Ginny's objection, he raised his wand and heaped all the toys into the big, wooden toy box with a spell. They clattered and banged as they went in.

“Sorry,” he said, a little sheepishly.

She grinned. “It's fine. I would have stepped on one as well. As long as you don't do that to the dishes again.”

“You know, I am going to go out, if you don't mind.”

“You should,” she said. “I mean...”

“No, not like that,” he said. “It's not too late. I'm going to go corner that muggle detective and see if he remembers anything else about the case. I don't like having no leads.”

“It's only late if you're the parent of a toddler,” Ginny agreed. “Yes, go ahead. Jot me down a note on the charmed parchment if you're going to be properly late.”

“Yes, of course.” Harry kissed her lightly on the lips. It was good, he thought. They were finding their way back.

Harry did a locator spell to find Tim Houghton. Tim had said to call on him any time, so Harry didn't feel too guilty. If he was somewhere that looked private, he'd just be on his way. But if he was at home or the office, he'd see if they could chat. The details on this case just didn't add up.

The locator spell sent him back to London, where he apparated in an alley not far from its target then set off on a walk. It seemed that the detective had gone for a drink after work, which might be perfect, Harry thought. He had a bit of muggle money in the pockets of his jeans, and he looked decent enough to go out. He was glad he hadn't thrown on a ratty t-shirt.

However, when he reached the pub, he nearly laughed. He had been there before, just a few months earlier. He tried to remember who he'd got off with that night, and all he could recall was a great number of pints and a blond man with smart glasses. Harry sighed. It seemed that fate was conspiring to get him out tonight after all.

Harry was reminded when he went inside that he had liked this pub. It was relaxed. Lots of blokes were there with friends and not on the pull. It was an old fashioned looking place, not one of these shiny, new sorts with too many drink options.

He didn't immediately see Tim, so he flagged the bartender and ordered a pint. Why not? He was only marginally on duty, and anything that happened in the muggle world barely counted. That was Harry's attitude in general. The wizarding world was the real world and the muggle world was like a place you visited on vacations, a place with strange customs but where you could act not at all like yourself and have it be all right.

The bartender pushed the beer at him and he took a long drink then looked around again. This time he spied Tim pulling up at the bar, speaking to the bartender, looking like he was maybe paying the tab. He was in more casual clothes than Harry had seen him in at the crime scene, nice jeans and a tight button shirt that showed off that he wasn't just skinny, but muscled, almost like a dancer. His dark brown hair was messier than before, but in a way that was clearly styled to be attractive. Harry liked seeing him in his work and casual mode. It was like having a secret peek into someone's life.

Harry took his drink around the corner and set it down next to where the detective was perched on his barstool. “Fancy finding you here,” he said lightly.

Tim did a literal double take that made Harry laugh out loud. The detective glanced around the bar almost furtively and then asked, “Did… was there something to do with the case?”

Harry opened his mouth, about to explain how he had wanted to see if Tim could talk for a few minutes and found him there, but then someone vaguely recognizable strode up to the bar.

Simon. That was his name. He really was handsome, Harry reflected, with blond hair and pretty brown eyes behind his glasses. And the square rimmed glasses really did look good. 

“Tim,” Simon said, approaching them, “do you know Harry then?”

“Simon, right?” Harry asked and smiled at him.

“I...” Tim started and then paused, utterly confused. “We know each other through work.”

“Ah, not just a ghost. I believe you told me you didn't have a mobile,” Simon said. If his voice hadn't been light and teasing, Harry might have worried, but he knew Simon's type. The man didn't care if Harry had been a one time shag. He had come over to tease him about being hard to get, but he wasn't a stalker.

“I don't,” Harry said.

“I can believe that,” Tim said, looking utterly bewildered, but with a smile on his lips.

“Well, you've always been rather gullible,” Simon said.

“Oi, I take offense to that,” Tim said, though Harry could tell it was partly put on. “And you two...”

“I told you, he's the gorgeous ghost,” Simon said, with an inflexion that made it clear that Harry had been discussed. He was sure he blushed and he could only hope that the lighting was enough to hide it.

“Oh,” Tim said, his voice filled with surprise. He looked Harry up and down again.

“Small world,” Harry offered.

“Well, I'll leave you two to it,” Simon said with a slightly lewd grin, brushing his hand against Tim's back as he went.

“So...” Tim said, appraising Harry.

“It's not what you think… well, it is, but...” Harry stumbled slightly. It was rare that he had to actually go about explaining himself to anyone in the muggle world. He was generally happily anonymous.

“Family man,” Tim said, and Harry couldn't decide what his tone meant, but he worried suddenly that he was being judged.

“She knows,” Harry said. “My wife, I mean. We both...” He waved his hand in a vague gesture.

“Ah,” Tim said, with a smile. “I wasn't judging. Sorry. Just surprised. Are open marriages common in your world?”

“No,” Harry said, shortly.

“So, this was just a coincidence?”

“Er, not exactly,” Harry said. He explained about having no leads on the case and thinking that he could find Tim and talk out the aspects that he was confused by, then finding him at a pub he had been to a few times.

“So you never identified the victims?” Tim asked.

“No bloody clue who they were,” Harry complained.

“Some cases just turn out like that,” Tim offered.

“Do they?” Harry asked.

“Well, yes. Don't they for you?”

“I suppose,” Harry said. “Sometimes we don't catch the wizards who committed the crimes. It's common for criminals to go abroad, for example. Sometimes there are people protecting them in the Ministry and our hands get tied. Not for murder, but for a great number of smaller crimes. But a case like this? We nearly always know basically what happened.”

“Oh. That must be nice.”

“Merlin, this case is baffling,” Harry said, finishing off his pint.

Tim grinned. “I feel like I've fallen down the rabbit hole. Look, I've got the original file back at mine. I nicked it after your lot made everyone forget everything. That was a fascinating bit of magic, I'll add. I don't think I've trusted my memories since.”

“Do you think it might have any details I've missed?” Harry asked.

“Never know. Of course, that means I will have got you back to my flat,” Tim said. He raised his eyebrows.

Harry laughed. “Yes, you will have.”

“Simon's infamous ghost.”

“What did he say exactly?”

Tim laughed. “Nothing really. Just that you were a brilliant shag that disappeared in the space from when he got up to use the loo to when he came back. He said he didn't even hear the door open. He's not a creep, if that's what you're worried about. Simon's an old friend. Oh, but I suppose you did some magic thing when you left,” Tim said, suddenly looking thrilled.

Harry felt himself blush again. “I must have been pissed. I can't even recall.”

“So...” Tim said.

“Come on,” Harry said. “I'll show you 'some magic thing.'”

Tim laughed. “That's a great line if I ever heard one. I suppose it doesn't work in your world.”

Harry rolled his eyes, but he was still smiling, amused, when he got Tim into the alley. “You live alone?” Harry confirmed. “No one there?” When Tim nodded, he instructed him, “Shut your eyes and think of your flat.” It took legilimency, but Harry found it wasn't a hard skill when applied to most muggles. Tim was no different. Harry pulled the image of Tim's apartment from the forefront of his mind and tried to ignore all the superfluous thoughts about work and chores and sex. Harry pushed aside thoughts of desire and sex and concentrated on Tim's home. Then he wrapped an arm around him while his eyes were still closed and disapparated.

“What the...” Tim stuttered, his eyes flying open. “Bloody hell. That really just happened?” He looked around his flat with a look of shock. “Do people ever get used to that?”

“It makes some people queasy,” Harry admitted. “But I've gotten decent at taking people along. And I almost never splinch anyone.”

“Splinch… no, never mind, I don't want to know,” Tim said.

Harry chuckled. There was a moment of silence, where they both looked at each other in anticipation and then Tim spoke.

“I do have those files… but I thought maybe...”

“Fuck yes,” Harry said, suddenly filled with desire.

“Yes to fucking, you mean?” Tim had an almost wicked smile that Harry found himself meeting enthusiastically.

Tim went from relaxed and casually evaluating the situation to all control and hunger in an instant. He grabbed Harry slightly roughly and pressed a kiss into the back of Harry's neck, burying his face in Harry's hair and shoulder, nipping at his ear. Harry felt boneless. He reached around Tim's thin frame and ran his hands from shoulders to arse, over the muscles in his back and where his trousers were tight at his waist.

Tim grabbed Harry by his belt loops and pulled him to the back of the flat, through the bedroom door into a neat room. He didn't bother with the lights, but Harry could see the tidy outlines of his dresser and side table and perfectly made bed. But then Tim's hands reached down to cup Harry's rapidly growing erection through his trousers and Harry couldn't care less about anything except the man in front of him.

Tim had them both naked in short order, stripping off items of clothing while barely pausing his hands as they moved over Harry's body. He was a greedy lover, Harry thought, wanting to touch everywhere at once.

Not that Harry much minded. Tim had taken charge of things exactly like Harry liked. He urged Harry backwards, onto the bed, his hands still roaming Harry's chest, his nipples, his hips, his arse, cupping his bollocks, then gripping his erection.

Harry hissed as Tim pressed his own prick into Harry's hip and stroked Harry with one busy hand, the other one dancing over his chest and neck and ear.

“What do you like?” he asked. “What do you do?”

“Everything,” Harry said, letting his head drop fully back onto the pillow, enjoying everything about this moment.

“I like to hear it,” Tim said.

Harry hummed as he grappled toward an answer and enjoyed the continued stroking, Tim's touches almost teasingly light.

“Tell me,” Tim whispered. “Or maybe I'll have to stop.”

Harry moaned again. “Don't stop.”

“You like my hands?”

“Fuck yes.”

“What should I do with them?” Tim slid his hand smoothly along Harry's erection but then trailed his fingers maddeningly up to his mouth, pressing them along his lips. “Perhaps you'd like them here?”

Just as Harry felt frustrated, Tim repositioned himself fully over Harry, their cocks sliding together. Harry moaned, opening his mouth and sucking the two fingers Tim had placed there.

“Nice,” Tim said. He kept talking, questioning, asking as he thrust slowly against Harry and Harry responded by using his own mouth to suck, to kiss, and to bite as they moved together.

By the time Tim rolled off and reached into his drawer to pull out lube, Harry was beyond ready to get off. Tim squirted out lube, which was cold and then oh so perfectly warm and right, everything lined up together, hands stroking together.

Harry laid back again, letting Tim follow him over, and then he arched forward to kiss Tim's lips and make their mouths come together as well. He thrust into their combined fists, feeling the slick friction of everything and then there was the sudden wash of pleasure as he shot between their bodies, Tim coming right after him.

Harry hummed in pleasure. “Want to see something else magic?” he asked a few moments later, bending over and feeling for his wand so he could cast a scourgify over the both of them.

Tim laughed, obviously delighted. “That's better than anything you've done yet,” he said, collapsing next to Harry.

After that sex, it was no surprise that Tim turned out to be a talker. As Harry fought the lethargy that always hit him after a good shag, trying to figure out what he wanted to do, Tim ran fingers over his chest and spoke lightly, saying how gorgeous Harry was, how good that had been. They were nice words, and just the sort of thing Harry liked, but he wasn't used to them from a random shag. But then, Tim wasn't a random shag. He would see him again through work most likely.

“How did you end up a detective? Or… a what's it called?” Tim asked.

“Auror,” Harry said. “I sort of…” He paused. No one had ever asked him that before. Everyone knew Harry Potter was an auror because he was Harry Potter. Or they didn't know anything about him and he didn't tell them. Harry furrowed his brow. “It's complicated.”

“There was a murder in my village, when I was a kid. Nothing traumatic for me, mind you. I sort of knew the kid's younger brother, but I didn't know him. The DCI came to talk to all the schoolkids and I remember he was this built redheaded bloke. Poor ten year-old me, I think I had a bit of a crush. He was so serious and he talked about the case very frankly, in ways the other adults wouldn't. He was probably a bit too blunt for ten year-olds. I remember the head teacher got very cross with him and called him gruesome. But I felt so grown up listening to him talk and tell us to come to them if we knew anything. I wished so much I did know something so I could help solve the mystery. That was it for me, I think. I talked of nothing else after.”

Harry liked listening to him. He could picture Tim as a youngster, wanting to help the police.

“Did you grow up in London?” Tim asked.

“Surrey,” Harry said automatically. He didn't mind so much the talking. The feel of Tim next to him was still warm and wonderful. But there was a growing sense of discomfort in his mind.

“When that bloke briefed me he said something about whole wizard villages. Was it somewhere like that?”

“I was raised by muggles,” Harry said.

“Like my sister,” Tim said.

“Not exactly,” Harry said. “It wasn't… My aunt and uncle...” He stuttered. People who knew him knew not to lead him into minefields.

Tim seemed to sense that he had done something wrong. Surely many people had terrible childhoods. Tim started in about a prank he and Simon had been involved in at university, where they met. It was mildly funny, and Harry felt Tim drifting off and himself starting to relax as well, when suddenly he couldn't stand it. His whole head started to close in on him in a way that rarely happened anymore.

Tim had finished his story and seemed to notice that Harry had stiffened. “You all right?” he asked.

“No,” Harry said. “I...” He sat up and leaned his head against his knees. There was nothing wrong. He had sent Ginny a note. Everything was fine there. Tim had been a good shag. He liked him. He thought he was funny. He didn't think he'd have a problem working with him after this. What was wrong with him? “Fuck,” Harry swore. It had not been like this in well over a year. He hated the uncontrollable flood of nasty chemicals into his brain, urging him to run or kill or, for Merlin's sake, just fucking do something. He knew it was utterly irrational, but that never seemed to help once it had started in earnest.

“Is there something I can do?” Tim asked, his voice quiet.

“No, I'm fine,” Harry lied. “Really. I… Thanks for this… I… I'm sorry. I just have to...” He looked around the room and gathered up his clothes the best he could. He pulled on his jeans and clutched his shirt. “I'm fine,” he repeated as Tim sat up, looking concerned in the darkness of the room.

“If you have to leave you could have said,” Tim said. He didn't look angry, just worried and that look wasn't one Harry liked. A part of him reared up inside and screamed angry, irrational things.

“Yes, I just forgot about something. Um… early. I'll… Yes, I'm sure we'll see each other… Right… Thanks again...”

Harry disapparated and reappeared in his own bedroom but then felt immediately guilty as the crack of apparation sounded around him and he knew he had woken Ginny up.

“Sorry,” he said quietly. But then the word seemed to rush out of him again, out of his control and he said it over several more times. “Sorry. Sorry! Sorry!”

He had intended to walk out, to find somewhere else to sleep, but instead he found himself on the floor. “Fuck,” he said.

“What happened?” Ginny was at his side, she was soft and warm and her lips were against his bare back and it was good, but he still felt out of control with anger and terror that had no purpose or meaning.

“Nothing,” Harry said. “Nothing. Fuck.”

“All right,” Ginny said quietly. “It's all right. Nothing happened and you're here. It's nothing, so breathe.”

Harry did as she said, which was a relief. And then she left, returning with a small vial that he immediately recognized as a calming drought. He was torn between wanting to throw the blasted thing across the room and wanting to guzzle it down in a single gulp. Instead, he did as she said and took in a small sip.

Magic, he thought, ruefully. It always worked. The terror began to shrink away and in the dulled, black and white dimness of the calming potion, he could see immediately that it had been a near panic attack. In the moment it had just felt inexplicable. It was always those quiet moments, Harry thought.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered again.

“Come to bed?” Ginny said.

“I was… I went out after all,” Harry said.

“Yes, I know,” Ginny said, somewhat impatiently. “I don't care. Just come to bed.”

Once he had gotten himself settled there, trousers back off, with Ginny spooned up behind him, Harry let out a long breath. “I don't really know why I...” He trailed off.

“Don't do that,” Ginny admonished him. “Say it and you'll feel better. Where were you? What happened?”

There was a long pause as her hands swept quietly over his bare back and her face stayed buried in his neck. Finally, he spoke. “I was in bed. It was with the detective, the muggle from the case. I didn't know he was gay when I went to find him, but he was at a… a pub I've been to. And a bloke I knew from… from a few months ago was there too. So he knew… He knew I was queer and we…” Harry took another ragged breath and shuffled his thoughts again. “We shagged. It was good. But then he liked to talk, after. I listened to him and it was really fine. I don't know… I don't know why I… I'm just a bit broken sometimes,” Harry concluded.

“Quiet, you,” Ginny admonished. “What did he talk about?”

“Normal things,” Harry said. “Why he became a detective, things about being at school. He asked me things, but nothing… it was really just normal things, I guess.”

It had been normal things, but normal for when Harry was out didn't involve anything about his real life.

“Well, normal isn't exactly in your wheelhouse though, is it?” Ginny said.

Harry laughed slightly, but it turned into a shiver. “I don't want to talk anymore,” he said. Sometimes the potions made him sleepy and it was so warm curled up with Ginny.

“Yes, all right,” she said, wrapping an arm around him loosely and settling in.

It was a long time before he fell all the way asleep, but he felt quietly comforted as he drifted next to his wife.

When he woke up, Ginny was on the bed with Lily, who was crawling around gurgling, playing with a soft ball that would roll away and then let itself be caught and roll back again. This one had gone through all three children, and in doing so, had gotten both a bit grimy, and a bit of a personality. It liked to bounce and bowl right into the kids then bounce away playfully.

“The boys are eating their breakfast with Rose at Ron and Hermione's,” she said. 

“Did I oversleep?”

“No, I flooed them over early.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Harry sat up carefully. He felt nervous, though he really couldn't think of any reason to. It was probably just leftover bad stuff running through his bloodstream from the previous night.

“Everything's fine,” Ginny said. “Are you?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. I guess. I'm sorry about last night...”

“Stop apologizing. It's fine.”

“Well, I am. I… Well… Yes.” Harry sighed. He hated how he sounded sometimes, unable to get the right words out. It was never like this at work. At work he was in charge, in control. He could say exactly the right thing to get the criminals to explain their plans or confess their motives. Or he could explain the situation in just a few words to the heads of the auror office or the DMLE. He could engage with witnesses. He could fight evil wizards. But then faced with mild awkwardness with his own wife, he suddenly went all dithering and vagueness.

“May I tell you what I think?” Ginny asked.

Harry nodded. She would anyway. She had a dark tone, but he wanted to hear it.

“I think you have a fear of intimacy,” she said.

As Harry shot her a look, she said, “No, will you hear me out? You don't talk to anyone but me these days. I mean really talk. Did you even tell Ron when you left? Did you tell anyone we were having problems? I talk to Luna and my old Harpies friends, and Jules and Yvonne. You don't talk to anyone but me. And he's a new person. You don't ever have to talk to anyone new and explain yourself. You never have to meet anyone the normal way because everyone always knows exactly who you are and the broad facts about your life. They already have formed ideas about you and what you've done. But that's how you achieve friendships. It's all that getting to know other people stuff that you keep skipping out on. And you don't do it with your muggle blokes. You don't even do anything but one night stands. And that's not a judgment, Harry. You know I don't care. I really don't.”

Lily started to go after the ball as it bounced down off the bed, giggling and saying, “Ball, daddy, ball.” Harry caught her and set her down so she could crawl after it.

“Maybe she'll be a seeker,” Harry said, watching his daughter catch the soft ball and then release it.

“Maybe,” Ginny said. There was a pause and then she started in again. “I think your detective got to you last night because he knew you, but didn't know you. And you realized you have to see him again and actually get to know him now. Like a normal person.”

“I am normal,” Harry said. There was nothing about his own fame he disliked more than the idea that he was somehow more than human, untouchable and unique.

“I know that. But the world doesn't give you much practice at it.”

Harry sighed. “Maybe.”

“Let me meet him. You know, then...”

Harry understood her implication. New rules. They had agreed that if he was going to do more than a one night stand with someone, he would introduce them to Ginny. The problem was that when he'd agreed to that, he hadn't thought it would ever happen. He didn't do more than one night stands.

“Maybe,” Harry said.

Lily pulled herself up, following the ball, which had rolled up onto the wall somehow. Harry scooped her up and grabbed the ball for good measure. “I'll get her dressed,” he said.

Ginny sighed. He could tell she was a little exasperated with him but he didn't know what to do about it. He was just as exasperated with himself.

* * *

Harry was only a little late to work, but Ron was already out of the office. It meant he caught the next case, another muggle related crime referred by the Magic Detection Office, to deal with solo. Not that he minded much. This time it was someone performing a flying charm in public. He mostly had to oversee the obliviation squad once he realized the culprit had gotten far away.

When he got back, Ron was in, and he looked annoyed.

“Thanks for minding the boys this morning,” Harry said.

Ron shrugged. “James needs to be banned from Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes.”

“Oh no. I'm sorry. What…?”

Ron waved his hand. “Mimicry strings. No big deal. Ginny said you two needed to talk. Er… is everything all right?”

The funny thing was that everything was fine with Ginny. Even if Harry felt unsettled about everything else, things with Ginny were on their way back to being solidly good. He thought about falling asleep in her arms and felt a shiver of contentment knowing she was still there for him, still his Ginny, even despite everything that had gone wrong since Lily was born.

Ron seemed to misinterpret the look on his face. “We could probably… I mean, it's lunch time. Why don't we go grab a bite? We could talk.”

Harry started to say no, but then he realized it was lunch and he remembered what Ginny had said. Ron was his friend. He didn't know why it had become so hard to talk to him, but Ginny had been right. He hadn't even told Ron that they had split for a couple of months, despite seeing him nearly every day.

They took the elevators down to the cafeteria. They had recently done a remodel and it really wasn't too bad anymore. It was magically spelled now to look like a sort of outdoor cafe, complete with pigeons. The janitorial staff had complained about the pigeons, but since they were still there, Harry could only assume they were hard to catch. Sometimes animals that got around magic too long ended up a bit magical themselves, which is what had happened with owls, after all.

Harry and Ron took a table off at the end, near what was probably the wall, but looked like the end of a street.

“This morning, I went to go see that detective, the muggle liaison one,” Ron said quietly as he opened his sandwich.

“Oh,” Harry said. And suddenly all thought of saying anything real to Ron was shut down in his brain. He opened his sandwich as well, but he felt like he was on the edge of a cliff.

“The evidence on that case doesn't add up,” Ron said. “I just thought maybe he could tell us something.”

“Oh.”

“Oh? That's all you've got to say?” Ron asked.

Harry opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He waved his hand vaguely. It seemed that it was all he had to say.

“I tried to catch him at home early,” Ron explained. “And when I apparated in, he seemed to think maybe there was something wrong with you. He said he was worried because you had left abruptly. And when I said we were friends, he seemed to imply… Harry...” Ron looked uncomfortable.

Part of Harry wanted to scream at Ron that yes, he'd fucked him, and didn't Ron already know he was bent? What did he expect? Another part of him wanted to smile blankly and possibly get up and walk away. He fought both ends and ended up just sitting there staring at the fake, blue sky with what he was sure was a very idiotic look on his face.

“Maybe you think it's none of my business,” Ron said. “But we have to work with him, Harry. If you… don't you think that's unprofessional? And, er… if you and Ginny are… Just be honest with me, Harry. Are you and Gin getting divorced?”

“What? No,” Harry said. “Things are… they're fine. Last night… well… Things are fine with Ginny.” He shifted uncomfortably. “I'll… er… I'll make things right with Tim. It's not… I'm sorry about that. Well…” Harry sighed.

Ron looked like he was barely holding it together and Harry had the sense he wanted to leap off his chair and launch himself across the table to strangle Harry by hand. Harry's eyes went back up to the fake blue sky.

“Fine,” Ron said at last. “Everything's fine, I guess. You're fine. Ginny is fine. I guess I'll just be fine too.”

“Ron...” Harry started, though he had no idea what he was going to say.

“No, it's fine,” Ron said, landing a sneer on the word. “Really. After all, I won't even be here much longer.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just handed in my resignation,” Ron said. “I'm leaving the aurors.”

“What?” Harry hadn't expected that.

“George wants a new manager for Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes in Hogsmeade. He asked me if I wanted to run it and I said yes. It's better hours and less stress. Now that we have two kids, it just isn't working for both Hermione and I to be working these sorts of hours. And she shouldn't give up her job. She's going to make Minister one day. Besides, mine is the job that's actually dangerous. And I'm ready, Harry. We did what we set out to do, catching the Death Eaters and helping reform the DMLE. I need a change. And you obviously don't need me here anymore.”

“Oh,” Harry said.

“Yes,” Ron said. There was a pause in which Harry felt like he ought to say something, but he couldn't figure out what. “Obviously I'll finish out this case, but mostly I'm going to be closing out paperwork for the next week.” He reached down into his case, which was resting on the ground next to his chair. “Here's the muggle files. Your detective, Tim, said you left them there by accident.” Ron made a little air quote gesture around Tim's name that made Harry cringe. 

He knew being gay wasn't really spoken about much in the wizarding world. He'd been watching things change from when he grew up with the Dursleys and they had only nasty things to say about “shirt lifters” and “poofs” to how things were now, with gay politicians and detectives and gay pubs just like any other place. People were very blasé about it, but those attitudes hadn't quite made the wizarding world, where it was still something that no one really talked much about. And the old pureblood ideals of finding “the right sort of person” to settle down with died hard in a culture that was small and threatened by underpopulation. It was less about blood status these days and more about magical inheritance, but it was still there in Harry's experience. But even knowing all this didn't really help when faced with Ron's vague homophobia. Part of Harry knew that the way to overcome it was to talk to him, like Ginny had said. But he didn't know how anymore.

So instead of anything real being said, Harry took the file and said thank you and that he'd really miss having Ron around at the office and out in the field, and Ron pretended that nothing was amiss with his brother-in-law's marriage or relationships and like he hadn't just called Harry on his unprofessional behavior. 

When he got back to the office, there was yet another call for muggle related crimes. This time there had been another explosion, though much smaller, just outside London, in a town called Ashen Park. Harry and Ron headed there and found a mixed up scene in front of a pub. They dutifully took witness statements. Several people had seen a very upset young woman with black hair in a messy plait that looked possibly homeless fleeing the scene.

“Possibly homeless is code for witch,” Ron muttered. However, Harry wasn't so sure. She didn't sound like she had dressed oddly, like the mismatched outfit Ron was in at the moment. It sounded like she was in torn, dirty clothes.

The explosion hadn't harmed anyone. The woman, if she was their culprit, had only managed to destroy some windows and part of a wall in an old row of houses that were due for demolition. Several of the people at the pub across the street complained that homeless people were squatting there.

Again, their detection spells turned up almost nothing except the vague presence of magic.

“Do you think it's the same person as before?” Harry mused as they oblivated the authorities into thinking it was a gas explosion.

“Nah,” Ron said. “Unless her victim got away this time.”

“The signatures don't look exactly the same,” Harry said, of the magical signatures test. He was just not sure what to make of any of this.

Back at the office, he owled Tim a note that said he was sorry for his abrupt leaving. Harry paused with his quill over the parchment. He asked would Tim like to come to supper over the weekend. Then, before he could change his mind, he rolled up the scrap of parchment and stuck it in the owl delivery box to float up to the owlery.

* * *

“I still can't believe he's leaving,” Harry said.

“If I was an auror, I'd never leave,” James declared from where he was building on the floor. “I could get away with all the things.”

Ginny snorted. “I can,” she said. She glared down at her oldest son. “And you would too, Jamie, if it meant going to work for Uncle George.”

“Ooh,” James said. “At the shop? Yeah, that's cooler than your job, Dad.”

Harry snorted.

“I wanna go meet the muggle man,” Albus said seriously, looking at his father with his face all screwed up.

“You will meet him, Al,” Harry said.

“Now!” Albus declared, stomping his foot.

“Sorry, Al,” Harry said. “Sorry, Gin. Er… We'll be back in a minute.”

He could hear Al's wail as he disapparated, but he tried not to let it get to him. James had a generally happy outlook on life and Lily seemed content with whatever attention he gave her, but it seemed nothing ever satisfied Albus. It was almost enough to make him give up trying. He hoped it was better once Al was no longer a demanding three year-old.

“God. I don't think I'll ever get used to that,” Tim said. He was standing in the doorway to his small kitchen, in jeans and a T-shirt, looking bemused.

Harry shrugged slightly. He felt uncharacteristically shy. “Are you sure you'd like to… er…” Harry said.

“You look cute when you babble,” Tim said.

Harry chuckled slightly. He did feel an odd chemistry with this man, perhaps more than with any man he'd ever been with other than Neville. Maybe there was something to what Ginny said about intimacy. Harry took a deep breath and tried to force himself to relax. It was just an hour of dinner.

“I'll bring you along then,” Harry said. “Close your eyes again.”

Back in the living room, Albus immediately rounded on them. “Muggle,” he said straightforwardly, looking at Tim with interest.

“Er...” Tim said.

“Would you like a sweet?” James asked, holding out a green looking toffee.

“Don't eat anything he offers,” Harry said quickly. “James, put that away.”

“It's only...”

“Harry, can you take Lily, please?” Ginny asked, coming in from the kitchen with Lily on her hip. “She's into the drawers and I don't fancy putting everything away again.”

“I could just...” Harry started, as he took his daughter from her arms.

“No,” Ginny said. “You cannot tidy the pots and pans with magic. They're a mess after you clean up. Sorry about that. You must be Detective Houghton.” Ginny held out her hand to him. “Pleased to meet you. I'm Ginny Potter. That's James. Harry is right, don't trust the little weasel. And this is Albus. He's fascinated by muggles for some reason. And this is Lily. And they've all had their supper and are going to bed!” She gave the boys a stern look.

Both of them objected, but seeing as Harry had fed them on pizza and other muggle treats earlier, they acquiesced pretty quickly. Harry let Albus ask one question, though the question turned out to be, “How do muggles fly?” and when Tim tried to explain about airplanes, Albus cried that they were magic and got annoyed.

By the time the boys were settled in their rooms and Lily was down in her crib with charms to alert them if she decided to climb, a new trick she had learned recently to escape, Harry was back to being nervous about Tim.

He walked slowly back to the living room and heard Ginny talking, laughing slightly. He smiled. This was an odd sensation. It was funny to be on the other end of things. When Ginny was still sleeping with Luna, she had never stopped being friends with them both, and first Jules and then Maisie for a little while before she moved away, had been in and out of the house as friends, occasionally meeting the kids in passing. But Harry never brought anyone around.

“...anything to avoid the press,” Ginny was saying as he walked up. “Oh,” she said as he came into the kitchen. “Kids all settled? Did you remember to charm…?”

“All done,” Harry said. “James is looking at a book. Al and Lily are down.”

“Ah, we can eat like civilized people instead of parents!” Ginny exclaimed. “Table's all set.”

She had made a wonderful meal, which wasn't a surprise. As they served themselves, Ginny asked Tim questions about his life and Tim talked openly about his family, his siblings, his favorite foods, a trip he took to Croatia the previous summer with a lover. Harry mostly sat and listened and enjoyed it. It was enjoyable. He rarely got to know anyone new. With his family such a sprawling web, and with his fame making it difficult to open up to anyone, he rarely even tried. But Ginny loved new people and she was trying on his behalf, which made him feel strangely warm and fuzzy toward her.

“This is wonderful food,” Tim said, gesturing to the lamb chops and roasted vegetables that Ginny had made.

“I'm just happy to eat some adult food,” Ginny said. “Meat pasties, pumpkin pasties, chicken and pea pasties… I don't think James eats anything that hasn't been swaddled in thick dough first.”

“Don't be modest,” Harry said. “She's not a natural in the kitchen, but she's very graciously taken up the task and she makes amazing food when she puts her mind to it.”

“Harry's not bad himself,” Ginny said. “He just insists on making everything the muggle way.”

“I never learned otherwise,” Harry said, with a shrug. “But I can't say I love cooking. Too many childhood memories of it.”

“Well, you have reasons. I may have resented doing it at first, but I don't mind it anymore. And you can make cheese toasties and scrambled eggs for the kids and spoil them with all that horrible muggle food. Tim, did you grow up on all this greasy muggle food? You must have. But you're fit.”

Tim laughed. “My mum is Desi. I grew up with a great deal of homemade curry.”

“Oh, Harry has introduced us to takeout curries. They've started to grow on me.”

“Did you grow up with Indian food?” Tim asked.

“Er, no,” Harry said. “My dad was Desi, or half, I think. But I never knew my parents.”

Ginny reached over and grabbed his hand. Tim changed the subject and they were all onto safer topics. Overall, it was a pleasant hour of conversation. Afterward, Harry offered to show Tim the garden, which was a large, slightly overgrown space with a big lawn and a garden patch.

“I like your wife,” Tim said. “Have I passed the interview then?”

“What interview?”

“The fucking Harry interview,” Tim said lightly.

“Ah,” Harry said. “Yes, I would say so. I think she was ready to pawn me off on you from the get go, honestly.”

“Yes, I did get that impression. You must be bollocks in bed.”

“Mm, I must be.”

Tim leaned in and captured his lips in a kiss that was confident and relaxed. The chill of a misty autumn night surrounded them, but Harry thought about sinking down to the grass for more of that kiss. Tim had a wonderful smell that was very much of the city, motor oil and cumin and metal, and it contrasted with the earthy smells of the wood and the village around Harry's house.

“Were you breaking the rules the other night?” Tim asked. “Is that why you left so abruptly?”

“What, with Ginny?” Harry asked. “No. One nighters are fine. It's pretty much all I do, honestly.”

“Oh,” Tim sounded surprised. “I am privileged to command your company a second time then.”

Harry leaned in for another kiss. “Absolutely.”

“But then…” Tim began and he grabbed Harry's chin as Harry started to pull away. “Don't do that. It just reminded me a little… my brother was abroad, in Afghanistan. It reminded me a little of him when he got back. Suddenly jumpy.”

Harry sighed. “Yes, muggles call it post-tramautic stress. I don't…” He took a breath. “I don't want to talk about it especially.”

“I don't want to trip anything,” Tim said. 

“You won't,” Harry said. “It's not… it's been awhile since anything… I don't usually...”

“Did I mention that you're cute when you're babbling?”

“You may have, yeah.”

Harry ran his fingers through Tim's thick, dark hair as they kissed again. This was nice. Blokes he picked up at random often weren't kissers. There was a sort of rush in getting off that could be heady and fun, but Harry liked this better. It was more enjoyable to think that they had all night, that Ginny had met him, that he could learn Tim's body and do this again one day.

“Keep your eyes closed,” Harry whispered as their lips parted.

They apparated directly into Tim's bedroom and Tim immediately pulled Harry's shirt over his head and began to run his lips over Harry's chest. His tongue caressed first one and then the other nipple into a hard peak and then bit eat one gently, just enough to give Harry a tiny edge of pain that went straight to his cock.

“You don't like to talk,” Tim said as his hands went to Harry's trousers, undoing the fastenings.

“I think you know what I want,” Harry said, slightly breathless, letting his own hands enjoy the planes on Tim's chest.

“Yes, but say it,” Tim said. “I want to hear you ask for it. I want to hear you ask for my cock to fit in your arse.” His hand reached beneath Harry's now loose waistband.

Harry moaned. “Yeah.”

“Then say it.”

It was funny. He had been topped many times over the years, but never, to his memory, with words. He liked to let go, to be used and treated a little roughly during sex. He always felt he had to be in control, careful about what he said and showed the world, which was not always kind to him in so many ways. But he never talked about it. That wasn't done, though now, faced with Tim stripping him down literally and figuratively, he wasn't sure why not.

“What do you want, Harry?” Tim asked, pushing Harry's trousers down below his hips and trailing a finger along his crack.

“Fuck,” Harry said.

“Not good enough.” The hand moved away, up to Harry's chest again.

Harry leaned into Tim's neck. “I want… you,” he said. “I want you to fuck me.”

Tim was so fast after that, pushing him to the bed, pulling off the rest of his clothes and flipping him over. Harry let himself be moved and pushed and then fingered open. And then Tim was on him and there was the rush, rush, rush of frantic thrusting and movement. And Tim didn't stop talking, telling Harry how he felt and how good he was until his voice stuttered and his hips moved erratically and Harry, so sensitized, felt him coming and Tim's chant of yes and his own fist reaching below to give himself one, two strokes and he was gone too.

The talking ceased then and, condom discarded and scourgify lazily cast, Harry fell asleep, more content than he could remember being in anyone else's bed but his own.

* * *

Harry woke up with a start, jerking awake the way he did sometimes. He couldn't remember if there had been a bad dream, but he felt the body next to him stir. For a moment of disorientation, he breathed the unfamiliar smells and started to panic. But then he felt his wand on the side table and remembered Tim and Tim's flat and felt the reassuring caress of Tim's fingers dancing along his chest.

“Okay?” Tim asked, groggily.

“Yeah,” Harry said. “Sorry. Just started awake.”

“Nightmare?”

“Dunno. Maybe.”

“Want to talk?” Tim's voice was heavy with sleep, but Harry almost laughed at his openness. He did love to talk and listen. He was all about words. He probably made a good detective, Harry thought. He could get people to talk. Maybe he could even get Harry to talk.

“Maybe,” Harry said. “I… don't know if it was a nightmare, but I get them, sometimes.”

“Mm,” Tim said. “About what?”

“There was… there was a war,” Harry began. “You probably didn't notice it, but it was right here. It was when I was seventeen. My friends and I, Ron and his wife, Hermione, though they weren't married back then obviously, we had a mission that no one else could do. And… things happened. Terrible things sometimes.”

“I'm sorry,” Tim said quietly.

“Yeah,” Harry said. “I don't talk about it really. I don't need to. Everyone in my world knows what happened, though not what exactly, they just know we're the 'Golden Trio.'” Harry tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice as he said that. “They all know who I am.”

“Oh,” Tim said. “So you're famous then? In your world?”

Harry groaned slightly.

“That… clarifies some things you wife said about the press.”

“Fuck. I hate the press,” Harry said. “And now Ginny works for them. The traitor.”

He could feel Tim's smile against his shoulder in the darkness of the bedroom.

“I can't… I trust my family. I really have nothing to complain about. I helped defeat a very bad man and I won the lottery in terms of my wife and family. And that was after a lot of pure shite that came before. But… Yes…” Harry sighed.

“Your world seems dangerous sometimes.”

“It can be,” Harry said. “But we also don't deal with the same diseases as muggles. And magic is… it's magic. It's all a tradeoff, I guess.”

“You've seen both sides, right? Your parents were muggles? But you never knew them?”

“No,” Harry said. Now that it was out, it was all coming out. This was what Ginny meant by intimacy. “They were wizards, but killed in the war. My abusive aunt and uncle raised me and starved me and neglected me and treated me like rubbish.”

“Fuck, Harry.” Tim's voice ghosted against his shoulder.

“I don't need pity...” Harry started.

But Tim was already on him, pressing Harry back into the mattress, kissing him and then burying his face in Harry's neck, sucking gently and then not so gently. His hands snaked out to grab and hold Harry's wrists against the bed, his legs moved to push Harry's legs open, his knees nudging Harry's apart.

Harry pulled a hand away from his grip and fumbled for his wand, mumbling lubricus and protection spells and feeling the chill tingle of slick at his hole. He was still loose from earlier.

“Just go in,” he said. “I took care of it. Don't wait.”

“Just let me get...” Tim said, reaching across Harry toward the bedside table. Harry thought briefly about arguing with him and explaining protection spells, but there was generally no arguing with a good muggle bloke about condoms, and Tim was a good bloke. So he let Tim quickly rip open the little packet.

Harry sighed watching Tim's cock get sheathed, the rubber rolling down his hard, long length. He planted his feet and hitched himself up and before he could think much more, he felt the blunt end of Tim's cock pressing inside.

Tim let out a groan and then grabbed Harry's leg, moving it up so that Harry felt pinned by just the position, pressing in slowly but so hard, and then repeating the action, using his leg to brace and push and dominate.

Harry, still half asleep, with all the confused endorphins of having said things that were hard to say and having woken from a nightmare he could barely remember any echo of, closed his eyes and felt himself lost to sensation. The drag of Tim's cock in and out, the glorious feeling of being held in place, the perfection of being loose and ready from earlier.

It wasn't until he felt Tim's hand on his own cock that he even realized he was fully hard. But then it was like the completion of a potion, when the ingredients all came together to suddenly turn colours and do their magic. He went from focused on being filled, the delicious sensation of Tim's cock pushing inside to press his prostate and then pull out to the edge and back again, to feeling suddenly needy, wanting to be encased in the warmth and press of Tim's hand, to feel himself draw up and come.

He reached his hand out again until he touched his wand and murmured another lubricus. And then Tim's slightly awkwardly positioned strokes became warm and slippery and perfect.

Tim groaned and pressed in, hard, moving his hand quicker over Harry's cock, sliding it back and forth as Harry arched his back and pressed up and then he was there, pleasure rocking through him.

And if he had felt loose before, it was nothing to this looseness, as Tim cradled his softening cock and pressed in once more, hitting his now oversensitive prostate, hips erratically jumping forward as he had his own release.

Harry, with what wits he had left, fell asleep to thoughts that this was the best sex he'd had outside of Ginny in ages. There was a time that he might have feared that, but Ginny had come back to him, Ginny had something a million times deeper than this with Jules and she kept coming back to him, and she had met Tim and sent them off to do exactly this. Maybe it was odd to think of Ginny then, but he felt flooded with love for her even as he pressed his face to Tim's neck and smelled the wonderful smells of sex and sweat and appreciated all the ways that intimacy had made sex better, safer, more perfect the second time that night. All those thoughts slipped through him as he fell into sleep.

* * *

“I was thinking,” Tim said, as Harry struggled to wake up. “You found those wands, but how do you know they were wizards? You can't seem to find them. No one is missing them in your world.”

“Too early for thinking,” Harry complained. He jabbed Tim slightly, but Tim jumped out of reach.

“Early, yes. But I have to get to work in an hour. And I assume you have to as well. Crime never sleeps.”

“Ha. Very amusing.” Harry made himself sit up and grabbed his wand, doing a tempus and then forcing himself up when he saw the time. There was no rush yet, but he also couldn't lounge in bed, as much as he wanted to. He felt sore in a good way, still loose and cheerful.

From the bathroom, Harry heard the sounds of the shower. He gathered himself together, trying to decide if he wanted to pop home or stay. Apparate home, he thought, looking at his crumpled clothes.

“I'm going away with Des for the bank holiday next weekend,” Tim said from the shower. “But you'd be welcome to come along to the pub with Simon and my other mates on Thursday if you like. It's our usual night out.”

“Simon will call me the ghost again,” Harry said. “I look nothing like a ghost, by the way. I know ghosts.”

“Are there really…” Tim started, but then fell silent as he turned the water off. “No, I don't want to know. And he won't. And I'll get to rub it in that I had you twice.”

“Oh, lovely,” Harry rolled his eyes as the shower door opened.

“Getting in?”

“I'm going home,” he said. “Um… maybe to Thursday. I think Ginny is going out with Jules that night so I'd be home with the kids. Julianna is her long time…” Harry gestured vaguely, unsure what to call Jules. “Girlfriend” seemed so trivial for someone who had been in their lives so long.

“Suit yourself,” Tim said.

Harry gave him a short kiss and then apparated away.

Ten seconds later, he apparated back, catching Tim standing at the bathroom mirror with a toothbrush now in his mouth.

“Harry?” he said in a muffled, toothpaste filled mouthful.

“If they weren't wizards, how would we figure out who they were?”

“Oh, just now catching up with that thought?”

“I think slowly in the mornings.”

“Noted. Can I finish dressing first?”

“Oh, yes. Er, right,” Harry said.

“Still cute when you babble,” Tim said.

* * *

Harry dropped the files on Ron's desk.

“You're late again,” Ron said. “What's this?”

“Our victims,” Harry explained. “They were muggles.”

“But...” Ron said. “The wands, the traces of magic. That can't be right.”

“But it is. They weren't foreigners. We found them. They're both from here in London, lived here most of their lives and in England since birth. They were muggles.”

Ron looked through the files as Harry sat down across from his desk, grinning.

“Wait, who's we?”

“What?”

“You said we figured it out? Who's this we? And where'd you get these files?”

“Ah,” Harry said. “Tim. The detective inspector...”

“Yeah, I know who he is,” Ron said.

They looked at each other across the desk and Harry thought to himself, this is absurd. He tried to summon up his courage and stared down his oldest friend. “You told me to make it right. It's all fine.” When Ron didn't say anything, Harry added, with as much nonchalance as he could muster, “Gin and I had him over to dinner. He's a good bloke. Ginny liked him. I think… er… I think he'll be good at this liaison business and that he'll be a good… er… a good friend.”

Harry willed himself to keep his eyes on Ron. Given what had happened before, the implications were pretty clear. This is normal, Harry thought. He was probably still riding the tide of intimacy from the previous night, where everything had been so good that he still wanted to follow all of Ginny's advice. Tell people things, share, be open.

Ron looked away first. “That's great,” he said, though his voice didn't sound great. 

“Ron...” Harry started, but Ron interrupted him quickly.

“What if the person who killed them is also a muggle,” Ron said suddenly.

“How does that make any sense?”

“There's some magic that can be done without being a wizard,” Ron pointed out. “Magical artifacts and some potions and so forth.”

“But we both tested for that stuff and turned up nothing,” Harry objected. He didn't know whether he should be annoyed with Ron or not. Ron had seemed uncomfortable, so he had changed the subject just when Harry was finally ready to say something. But he didn't think he had it in him to argue.

Ron sat up straighter in his chair. The DMLE buzzed around them, paper airplane memos zipping by, and sparks from artifact testing over in the far reaches of the vast office space distracting them occasionally. “What if it's like a hedge wizard, like in a story?”

“What? What's a hedge wizard?”

“You know, someone without enough magic to be trained properly.”

“Is that a thing? I thought you had magic or you didn't.”

Ron shook his head then looked confused. “I don't know. But they were all in the old stories about Merlin and the Fairy Kings and so forth. I had a book as a kid about a medieval knight where a hedge wizard sold his sister bad amortentia and the bloke she wanted to fall in love with her was poisoned instead. It was all very ghastly for a children's book, now that I think about it. But the moral was definitely don't trust hedge wizards because they weren't good enough to go to Hogwarts or another school and be properly taught.”

Harry's mind reeled. “But… those are just stories.”

“Let's ask Hermione,” Ron suggested.

“What are we, Hogwarts students?” Harry asked with a slight chuckle. However, as they took the elevators to the magical court clerk offices, where she was currently working, he felt a strange sense of happiness about needing to consult Hermione. They probably could have asked someone else in their department, but there was something comforting about this. And she was likely the best read witch in the building.

She had just settled into her day's work, which seemed to involve a complex set of case law and going over documents written in Gobledegook, and didn't look thrilled to see them. However, she invited them to sit, though that meant transfiguring her side table into a little bench after they cleared everything off it.

“I know a little about this because I was involved with the magical education committee last year as the law clerk,” Hermione said. “They couldn't make any changes that were outside the law.”

“So? Hedge wizards are a real thing?” Harry asked.

“Well, they don't really use that term anymore,” Hermione said. “But I think that's just because if you don't have much magic, then you don't ever know about magic and would never try to become a practicing but unqualified witch or wizard. How would you? And it's not like in olden times when someone might just believe in magic and try out all kinds of magical folklore. The magical and the muggle worlds really used to be a bit closer together. It's part of how the whole pureblooded thing began, actually. It was an attempt to keep the two worlds separated.”

“So, you're saying some people really do have a bit of magic in them?”

“Well, yes,” Hermione said. “Of course. Probably a lot more people than most wizards would like to admit too. See, one of the things the magical education committee discussed was the Hogwarts roles. They update themselves as magical births happen. The spells that made them are quite complicated. There was talk of redoing them or just reinforcing them. They decided to do the latter because no one was sure exactly how the original cut offs had been done and they didn't want to get it wrong. It can be dangerous to have a child who does have a significant amount of magic not become trained, after all. And while there's nothing wrong with being a muggle, Hogwarts probably doesn't need to be overrun by several dozen children who are only ever going to have enough magic to do a lumos.”

“So it's plausible that our criminal...” Ron began.

“The woman,” Harry said. “The one who also blew up the building the other day. It could be the same person after all.”

“Yes, exactly,” Ron said. “It's possible she's got just a bit of magic?”

“And it's all gone haywire?” Harry asked.

“I suppose,” Hermione said. “Though she would have to have found out about magic somewhere.”

“It would have to have gone very haywire somehow,” Ron mused.

“But some muggles know about magic,” Harry said. “Your parents know. Families of muggleborn witches and wizards know. People like Tim know.”

Ron pulled a face, but then he added, “Squibs know.”

“That's different though,” Harry said. “Some squibs live in the magical world.”

“Not most of them,” Hermione said. “There's actually a newish office called Squib Aid. They help place squibs in muggle schools and get them started in muggle lives. Most of them go to muggle university, get muggle jobs, marry muggles and just fade away.”

“But their kids!” Harry said.

“Oh, and that might explain the wands,” Ron said, suddenly excited. “Heirloom wands. It could be the daughter of a squib, and the wands of her grandmother or grandfather, who would have been a wizard.”

Harry nodded vigorously. This was his favorite moment on a case, when they figured things out and it all started to come together. “Ron, go to magical records again. Now we know what we're looking for, the family records for squibs. You can cross-reference them with the records for the two victims. I'd bet anything they were also somehow related to squibs or have magical heritage in their ancestry.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Go see Tim and start tracking down the woman. I'm going to go back to the description. Maybe he has a way to look for her.”

Ron went from calm to annoyed. “Right,” he said curtly. He nodded to Hermione before walking out.

She sighed. “Harry,” she said.

He bristled, trying to form whatever arguments needed to form in his head, telling himself staunchly not to go all vague with Hermione, who wouldn't tolerate it anyway. But then, to his surprise, she stood up from her desk and came around to hug him tightly.

He was enfolded briefly in her arms, which were now thicker and stronger from becoming a mum and carrying Rose around. He lowered his head to her shoulder with a sigh. “What's this for?”

“That was almost like old times,” she said, pulling back. She looked him over appraising. “And for a moment I thought you and Ron were past whatever has been going on for the two of you. Is everything all right?”

“I… Well…” Harry sighed. He had done it after two words. “We're just not the same people. I think he has trouble understanding...” Harry trailed off. Ron had trouble understanding his marriage, his PTSD from the war and his upbringing, his sexuality.

“I've always thought it went back to that year you didn't rejoin us at Hogwarts,” she said.

“Oh,” Harry said. It was so long ago. And that whole year had been such a blur. He had spent it throwing himself into auror training, making Grimmauld Place livable, and desperately owling Ginny in the hopes that she would finish Hogwarts and marry him. It had not, on the whole, been an especially healthy year. “I don't know if that's…”

“Maybe not,” Hermione said. “Are you all right? Ginny said things had been rough but they were better. I'm struggling to manage Rose and Hugo and I can't imagine if I threw a third kid in the mix. I thought Ginny was a bit mad to go back to work, though I guess I'm hardly one to speak.”

“Her not working was making her mad,” Harry said. “It… Things weren't good. But they're better. Lily is an easy baby, unlike Albus. And we… We sat down and made some new promises. Things have been better.”

“The other morning...” Hermione began.

“I just wasn't feeling well in the night,” Harry said. “That's all.”

Hermione looked like she was going to say something else, but instead she nodded. “Even if you and Ron are bickering, you know you can talk to me, right?”

Harry smiled. He both trusted that Hermione was there for him no matter what and deeply feared that she wasn't. As long as he didn't spill to her all the frightening things, then he never had to test her love. But he didn't want to think about that. He knew it was irrational, for one thing. 

“I should go,” Harry said. “You have work and I need to go see Tim, er, the detective inspector.”

He hurried away, feeling guilty and uneasy about how he was treating Hermione, but also unsure about how to fix anything. If Ron was anything to go by, explaining things to Hermione wasn't anything he wanted to do any time soon.

* * *

Tracking down their potential culprit turned out to be easier than Harry expected. He arrived at the sleek, muggle office building where Tim had his office and flashed his blank, but magically convincing credentials. Tim's partner, Sarah, seemed easily distracting by their real case load, though Tim assured him that it wasn't anything pressing. Then he began typing on his computer.

To Harry, who had grown up in a time when computers weren't as omnipresent in the muggle world as they had become, this was like magic. It was funny how computers seemed to do things magic couldn't and vice versa. He knew Hermione had some ideas for introducing computers to the Ministry, but she still wasn't sure how they'd do it because the more complex the technology, the more likely it was to just fizzle in highly magical places. Harry doubted you could get a computer to work reliably in Hogsmeade, much less in the heart of the Ministry. He thought it was much more likely that spells inspired by computers would become more common.

Harry poked around Tim's office without trying to look like he was poking around. Tim had a photo of himself with his mother, a sleek looking woman with hair that was still dark, wearing a stylish looking dress. He also had a photo with his much younger sister, who had pale brown hair and chubby cheeks. By the time Harry had begun to think about poking into any drawers, Tim had a list of a couple dozen names of women who fit their criteria.

It only took Harry a moment of scanning them before one stood out. “Vera Nithercott,” he said.

“Well, that is magic. How do you know?”

“I could be wrong, but the name.”

“What about it?”

“It's not common, is it? But Phoebe Nithercott was someone in the Goblin wars, don't ask me what, but I know that name rings a bell. And Elias Nithercott was a very famous quidditch player. He founded the Canons, Ron's favorite team.”

“A what player?”

“Wizarding sport. Played on brooms.”

“You're having me on.”

“Not at all. I played at school. I was a seeker. I was pretty good too. But Ginny's the one who went professional. And she can do any position, well, except beater.”

Tim looked amused and delighted. “Right. So...”

Harry nodded. “Name and picture. It's enough for a simple locator spell. We may as well see what she's up to.”

The locator spell showed her just outside the city, so Harry apparated the both of them to a neighborhood of older, slightly rundown homes. In front of them was a house that was up for sale. It was obviously empty, with an unkempt lawn and a broken window.

“You think it's her?” Tim asked.

“Well, unless she's a realtor.”

“Shop girl, according to her file,” Tim said.

“Yeah,” Harry said, glancing around at the mostly empty streets and waving his wand to do a quick magic detection. “Yeah, it's her.”

“So do we just walk in?”

Harry nodded. “Yes, we do.”

An aloramora opened the door. The place smelled empty and the lights were off, but as they rounded the corner, they came face to face with Vera Nithercott.

She was younger than Harry expected. He wasn't sure why he'd been picturing an older woman. The photo had been grainy, though the file had said she was only in her mid-20's. Her hair was stringy and unwashed. Her clothes were obviously the same ones she'd been wearing for the whole week since the whole thing had begun.

“Stay back!” she screamed. Harry could see that she was clutching a wand. It was funny because it wasn't like there was one way to hold a wand. But the way she held this wand was all wrong somehow. It was like watching a child clutching a crayon in their fist. You knew they'd never be able to stay within the lines. This grip would never make a spell work. But it had somehow.

“We're here to help,” Harry said, taking a small step toward her.

“Stay back!” she screamed again. She looked around the little room desperately, as if looking for somewhere to hide or something to use as a weapon.

Tim's hands were outstretched. “We're not going to hurt you,” he said.

“I'm not worried about you,” she said. “You're the ones need to worry. I'm powerful. I've… I've killed people.” She sounded desperate.

Tim took a step closer than Harry would have liked and he couldn't work out why he was pushing it so much.

“I'm powerful too,” Harry said calmly. “It can be a bit scary when you have power you can't control. But I've learned to control mine.” He still couldn't quite work out how she'd gotten so powerful. She should have been down on the Hogwarts roles, or she shouldn't have had enough power for this, or she should have gone completely mad. None of this made sense, but he tried to talk to her as if it all did. “I can help you control yours too.”

Tim took another step toward her and Harry saw a sudden movement.

“Protego!” he cried, pointing his wand at Tim, who had obviously gotten too close.

Vera Nithercott looked alarmed at her own magic, nearly dropping the wand and fumbling it back into her hands. Tim was knocked down by Harry's abrupt shield charm and he looked shaken, but otherwise fine. Harry turned back to Vera.

“See, I have power too. Only mine is controlled. Watch.” He turned away from her. “Expecto Patronum.” It was funny how many happy memories there were to draw upon these days, even when things were difficult. He never had any trouble accessing them.

The stag emerged, white silver and glowing, looking impossibly out of place in the little house. He heard not only Vera but also Tim gasp. “Get Ron, Prongs,” he said to the stag, before turning back to fix Vera in his gaze. He watched her as she watched the stag gallop out through the walls and beyond the little house, still visible in the dim light outside.

“What will you do to me?” she whimpered.

“First, you need to put down the wand,” Harry said.

“No!” she said. Then she began to cry. “It won't leave me alone. It keeps coming back. You don't think I tried? I… I can't put it down.”

Harry frowned. “I'm going to cast a charm,” he said. “You won't feel a thing.”

“No!” she said again. “No! What will you do to me? Mum always said don't trust wizards, they erase your memories like a chalkboard and steal your treasures!”

Harry sighed. He wasn't sure what to do that didn't involve simply tying her up and forcibly removing her wand. He could do that, but everyone knew you had to be careful around untrained magic users.

“All right. Tell me what happened.”

“It's not my fault! I don't understand why it all keeps going wrong. I tried to do the things in the notebook I had. I followed the notes perfectly, but everything keeps going haywire. Sam and Tolly...” She began to bawl in earnest again.

Those were the other muggles, the two who had died.

“What happened to them?”

Out off the corner of his eye, Harry saw that Tim had started to move and he cast a sideways look. “Don't,” Harry hissed. “Back down.” Tim hesitated, but sat.

“Tolly made me the potion. And then it splattered. Great, big, purplish bubbling. And then I tried the spell, but the little bang was so big… and then… no one got up and… Don't erase me like a chalkboard. I...”

Harry's mind worked fast, trying to figure out what it could possibly be. Maybe it was a strengthening potion of some sort? Some of them could mess with your magic. Maybe it was something that had blown hers out of control. It almost made sense too. One of the reasons you never used that sort of thing on your magic was that it sent it out of control.

“Vera...” Harry began.

“How d'you know my name?” she cried.

“I wish I could say it was magic, but it was mostly just detective work,” Harry said.

Something off to the side made her jump and there was a small explosion in another part of the house.

“I can help you,” Harry said, trying to infuse his words with confidence.

She looked at the wand in her hand.

At that moment, there was the loud pop of apparation and Vera startled again, the whole room beginning to glow.

“Expellarimus!” Harry shouted, unwilling to wait any longer.

The wand flew out of her hand and into Ron's. Harry grinned. They were still in sync out in the field.

Unfortunately, it didn't seem to have stopped whatever Vera was doing. The glow around her continued and things began to be kicked up around the room. A window broke. A small table tipped over while a bit of junk flew overhead, nearly hitting Tim. Harry brought it back to the ground with an unspoken levitation spell.

“Make it stop!” she wailed.

“Obscurus?” Ron asked, looking dismayed.

“Can't be,” Harry replied. “She's too old. The magic is too new!” There was a roar rising in the house that Harry recognized as a the sound of wind. It was as if a tornado was forming around them, glowing and magical. Inwardly, he felt annoyed by the clean up that was going to lead to, not to mention the paperwork. Of course, they had to put a stop to it first.

“We have to get out of here!” Tim said.

“Don't move!” Harry commanded. And then, because he simply didn't want to have to worry about him, he threw a sticking charm at his feet.

“If she's not going obscurus, then what the bloody hell is she doing?” Ron asked. Harry knew that the uncertainty was the only thing keeping him from doing anything to her. Magic, especially confining magics, could make magical events like these much worse. They could put up a shield around her or tie her up, but if she blasted through, the whole thing could get worse.

“The potion!” Harry cried.

“What potion?” Ron asked.

“She made something… the strengthening solution.”

“No bloody strengthening solution would do this.”

“She obviously screwed it up!” Harry said. “But if that's the cause, we...”

Ron held out his hand and a large glass vial appeared in a mist of purple magic. “On it.”

The room was really loud at this point. Harry could hear Tim saying something, and the roar of the wind, the crash of small bits of things into the walls, and the increasingly desperate cries from the woman in the center of the room. 

“Siflio!” Harry said, pointing his wand at Vera Nithercott.

Vera's cries stopped for a moment, making the roar of the room seem quieter. And then she opened her mouth and a stream of gray blue viscous potion came out in a trail. Ron's wand was already on it, urging it into the vial, stopper ready. He waved the potion into the vial.

Harry pointed his wand at Vera as she fell to the ground, passed out, placing a cushioning charm beneath her. Around them, the roar of the wind, the eerie glow, and the racket of the house all ceased. They were left in darkness, the only light coming from the street outside.

Harry turned to check on Tim and immediately banged his shin on some bit of furniture that had moved itself closer in the last few minutes. “Merlin's pants,” he swore. “Lumos.”

The room lit up and he could see Ron putting a stasis spell on the vial as it shook. “Bloody amateur potion brewers,” he swore.

“Is it… is it over?” Tim asked in a small voice.

“It bloody well better be,” Ron said, lighting up his own wand and stepping toward Vera Nithercott. “Hypnadim,” he said, casting a sleep charm on her just to be sure she stayed out. “This is enough paperwork for a year, I'm sure.”

“Harry, I can't move,” Tim said. “She… did she do something to me?”

“Oh, sorry,” Harry said. “That was me. Er…” He waved his wand and wordlessly released Tim from the sticking charm. “I wanted you to stay out of the way. Are you…?” Harry surveyed the damage around the abandoned house. “You all right?”

Tim stood up straight, looking around as well. Harry had a sinking feeling. Some muggles, when faced with magic like that, absolutely had to be obliviated. They couldn't process it without going a bit mad.

“Harry, if we have to...” Ron began, looking up from where he was dealing with their knocked out perpetrator.

“I know,” Harry snapped. “I will do what I need to, Ron.”

“Fuck,” Tim swore. “That was intense and you two are on like nothing happened. Is this just another day at the office for you?”

“Mobilicorpus,” Ron said, raising the body.

“It wasn't just another day at the office, but we do deal with things like that occasionally,” Harry said carefully.

“Harry, remember how I said you were cute when you were babbling?” Tim said, shaking out his leg and looking at it funny from having been stuck down. He leaned close so that Ron, dealing with the body, wouldn't hear. “Forget that. You're sexy when you're being in charge.”

Harry leaned back and laughed. He glanced Ron's way. They were still alone, but any moment he would need to call in for backup aurors and probably a healer, and one of their potion experts to see what in the world she had brewed, not to mention come up with a cover story. Ron met his eyes and looked away with a sort of resigned shrug so Harry took the opportunity to lean forward and capture Tim's lips for a brief but intense kiss, everything around them still smelling like burnt potions and kicked up dust, but Tim still having his slightly citrus shampoo smell and his warm lips and his impossibly open look. When he pulled back and surveyed the room again, Ron had Vera Nithercott bound and floating toward the door, but he was definitely aware of them.

“Will you go outside and deal with the muggle authorities who are bound to show up soon?” Harry asked Tim. “We'll step in soon to obliviate, or, um, erase anyone's memory.”

“Starting to get the lingo,” Tim said, nodding.

* * *

Two hours later, things were mostly dealt with. Tim had proved himself to be far from useless, having concocted a cover story about some university students performing science experiments that was both absurd and, when coupled with the power of his title, believable enough that several muggles didn't even need to be obliviated.

Harry was wrapping up paperwork duties with Ron when Tim came over to tell them that they were in the clear. Most of the other auror staff was gone as well.

“Thanks,” Ron said gruffly.

“What'll happen to her?” Tim asked.

“Vera?” Ron asked. “No clue.”

Harry looked at Tim. “I heard the healers talking about radical memory removals. So, I don't think we're intending to punish her. From what I can gather, none of it was really her fault. The three of them were all in it together. They all had wizarding ancestry and they all wanted to play around with things they didn't understand and accidentally made a potion that made her power go off the charts and haywire.”

“Can anyone make a potion?” Tim asked and Harry could tell he was thinking of the odd blue substance that he had pulled from her body, still mostly active.

“Any wizard,” Ron said.

“She didn't need much magic to make the potion in the first place,” Harry offered. “Potions are more about careful calibration of ingredients and putting in the catalysts at just the right moment. It's very delicate.”

Ron snorted. “As if you'd know. If we'd had to sit that NEWT, you and me both would have been Trolls.”

“I'd like to think I would have gotten at least a Dreadful,” Harry said.

Ron rolled his eyes and for a moment things were just right. But then an awkward silence fell.

“If you'll just wait, I can see you home,” Harry said to Tim. “Ron and I will be finished in a few.”

Tim nodded and took himself back to the other side of the house by the road. Ron finished up the final detection charms and set the autoquill writing out the results.

“It was Roxy's birthday yesterday,” he said, his voice a studied casual. “We're supposed to have family supper at the Burrow.”

“Oh, Merlin,” Harry said. “I can't even keep track of what day it is. Would you...” His voice trailed off for a moment, but then he decided to push on. There was no use in any of this. “Would you tell Gin that I'll be along in a bit? I'd like to take Tim home.”

“You're really asking me that.” Ron's voice was flat. “What am I supposed to say?”

“The truth,” Harry said. “She's met him, you know. When I say she knows that I'm bent, I'm not lying to you, Ron. And you know she has her own lovers. I know you knew about Luna.”

“That was just Luna being… Luna,” Ron said. 

“Fine,” Harry said. “You don't have to. I'll put it on the charmed parchment we have.” At the word parchment, the autoquill lifted off the paperwork and stood at attention, ready to write again.

“No,” Ron said. “I can tell her you'll be along later.”

“Right. Thanks,” Harry said. He tapped the quill, sending it back to sleep, and tucked the parchment away so they could turn it all in the next day. It was done, at least for the moment. Case solved, things resolved the best they could be. Magic was dangerous, but still magic. Harry turned to leave.

“I'm not a bigot, you know,” Ron blurted out. “I'm not homophobic. I know you think I am, but I'm not, really.”

Harry turned back, trying to figure out what to say. All of this was off limits for conversation, but he had blundered in with it and now he was stuck with the consequences. “I,” he started, trying to choose his words carefully. “I don't think you mean...” I don't think you mean to be, he wanted to say, but he bit the words back. “I know,” he said. “I don't think that.” It wasn't what he thought, not exactly.

“Yeah. Okay,” Ron said. “See you in a bit, right?”

“Right,” Harry said.

He hurried off to Tim, who was waiting by the road. Without even asking, he cast a disillusionment and apparatated them both away, to Tim's flat. He felt like he was running, but he wanted to get away from that conversation, as far away as possible.

“Oh,” Tim said, obviously startled. “You're all action today, Harry.”

“Ron is such a...” Harry shut his eyes tight, holding the thought back.

“Ah. Did you want to talk about it?” Tim placed his hand at Harry's hip, fingers tracing the seam on his trousers.

“Yes. No. There's nothing to be said. He just doesn't like… this. He thinks it's his job as Ginny's brother to protect her honor or something. He treats me like I'm...” Harry cut himself off. “I don't want to talk about it.”

Tim laughed. “I think you do, mate. But that's all right. You don't have to.” He leaned in closer to Harry and ran his tongue along Harry's neck then up to his earlobe, sucking lightly.

“Fuck,” Harry said. Tim seemed to understand sex the same way Ginny did, as a sort of answer to everything. The universal cure. The right idea every time. And both of them seemed to have an understanding of just how to turn him on. Ginny had learned it through years of practice and study. She was so deep under his skin that even their brief separation couldn't kill the connection between them. Tim seemed to get it through instinct. As Harry's hands reached out to return the embrace, without moving his mouth from Harry's neck, Tim grabbed his wrists and gripped them tightly, almost roughly.

“Did I mention how sexy you were today?” Tim asked.

“You may have done,” Harry said. 

“Isn't the start of things brilliant?” Tim said. “When it's all getting to know someone and wanting to fuck them every single minute.”

Harry groaned. He had never done this stage of seeing someone ever. With Ginny, it had been different. With everyone else, he'd never gone past the first go. But Tim was so right. There was a thrill to this part. Ginny rarely did a one night stand, but she had lovers who lasted a year several times and suddenly he understood the appeal. This was the part she liked. Not the first time or the second, but the third, the fourth, the fifth. Eventually it would wear off or deepen into something else, but right now Tim was exactly right. “Yes… but we have to be fast. I have a family dinner.”

Tim laughed and pulled him by that same grip on his wrists into the bedroom, the sheets still unchanged from their night before.

And then it was all Tim's warm brown skin, his mouth moving all over Harry as they stripped down and Harry's own arousal accelerating into a heady joy. Tim led him, pushing Harry down and then flipping himself around and taking Harry's erection into his mouth. Tim's cock, with its beautiful dusky skin and reddish head was right there and Harry happily wrapped his hands around Tim's thighs, bringing his face to that cock and sucking him in.

He hadn't done this often, not like this where every thrust and swirl of the tongue could be returned and fed back to him by his partner. They ended up sideways, Harry gripping Tim's arse and Tim sucking him hard while pressing a saliva slicked finger inside his hole. He would moan and then feel Tim moan in return, the vibration of it humming right around his own cock.

When Tim shot down his throat, Harry felt his own hips stutter and thrust as the bitter, slightly tangy taste ran down the back of his tongue. 

Afterwards, Harry had to fight the urge to just fall asleep with Tim. It was early, but it had been a long day and a nap sounded so appealing.

“You're not allowed to drop off, Harry,” Tim helpfully reminded him. “You're the one that told me you had to go to a family dinner.”

“Ugh,” Harry said.

“Tough in laws?” Tim asked.

“Well there's Ron,” Harry said. “But… no. They're my family as well. The only one I have really.”

“Please say you'll come out Thursday and let me do some variation of this again. Also by then I expect my head will have managed to forget how utterly crazy it was watching you produce a glowing deer and some sort of force field and fly things around and… Bloody hell. I'd like to be reminded it was all real even if I can't do it myself.”

Harry grinned and made himself roll off the bed. He promised he would try and he really meant it. He would try because he liked Tim and he liked this heady sort of sex they had, the same and yet different from anything he'd done before. He and Ginny had made all these rules and this had seemed to break the rules before but now he felt it was what the rules were made to protect.

By the time he got to the Burrow, it was time for dessert. Albus was looking cranky, but when James tried to take his helping of treacle tart but when Harry waved his wand so that both servings appeared on Al's plate instead, he did cheer up. Lily was sleeping atop a very still Victoire, who looked proud to be holding the baby, but also relieved when Harry took her to rest on his shoulder. She jumped up and wriggled and ran over to get her serving of treacle tart while Bill praised his oldest daughter's commitment to being a good big sister and oldest cousin.

Harry wished four year old Roxanne a happy birthday. She had a feral look on her face that George seemed oddly proud of and Harry guessed meant she had been subsisting on sugar alone since her birthday celebrations began. Molly indulged James with an extra serving of tart to replace his lost one. Angelina and Ginny argued about quidditch so loudly that Molly had to go scold them, at which point, Ginny pulled him over and told him to back her up, which he did. “Ginny's absolutely right,” he said.

“You don't even know what we're arguing!” Angelina objected.

“Right,” Harry admitted readily. “But Gin's always right.”

Ginny grinned and kissed him and kissed Lily's sleeping head for good measure. “You have a good time with your bloke after work?” she whispered.

Harry nodded. “Merlin, yes.”

She grinned back and then went back to arguing with Angelina, though more quietly for the sake of all the toddlers in the room.

It was perfect, Harry thought. It was beyond perfect, actually. As he looked up, he caught Ron watching him and for a moment they locked eyes. Ron's look was searching, still confused, but then he smiled slightly, hesitantly and any tightness in Harry just fled. He grinned back.

Ron looked momentarily startled, but then Hermione was there, oblivious, and urging him to help with something with Hugo. Ron took his infant son into his arms and looked away, the moment passing. But that didn't matter. It had happened, and Harry felt again how lucky he was and breathed in the warm chaos of the Burrow with sense of relief.


End file.
